Two speeches
When it comes to leadership and persuasion, cognitive phenomena may not be as maladaptive as they are sometimes portrayed
This past week saw two important speeches by two of the most powerful political leaders of the planet. Both were made against the background of the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine war, and the geopolitical situation was largely also their subject. Nonetheless, someone unaware of this might easily have been fooled into believing they were about two utterly different topics. The similarity of the methods used by the speakers, however, could hardly be stronger.
I am, of course, referring to the speech given by US President Joe Biden in Warsaw, and president Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation to the State Duma, the Russian parliament. They were both principally aimed at an ‘ingroup’ audience (although Biden did directly address the Russian people at one time), and painted self-assured pictures of the situation that were, as expected, perfectly aligned with their two distinct perspectives.
Speech 1
Biden had arrived in Poland after a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital. His detour via Kyiv was an unusual event — US presidents have rarely visited countries at war where there were no American troops present — and a highly…
